Vasteras lost for the first time with Brendan Mikkelson in the lineup, the productive duo of locked-out NHLers Patrik Berglund and Mikael Backlund were held scoreless and Lars Johansson could only stop 12 of 15 shots on a night the old joke about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory seems particularly poignant. At the end of the first, Vasteras held a 14 to 1 advantage in shots, had been on the power play three times and had yet to go down a man. Vasteras continued to dictate play in the second, putting up another 13 shots and taking three more cracks at the man advantage, but wound up heading into the third trailing by two. Vasteras finally solved Malmo's netminder Pontus Sjogren just after the start of the third period when Tim Heed buried a feed from Matt Fornataro, formerly of the Lightning farm system and the player who was sent to Chicago in exchange for Brandon Segal last season, Vasteras would not get the score any closer despite yet another three power play chances in the final frame. Mattias Persson scored twice for Malmo. Vasteras (12-7-2-0, 40 PTS) now regroups to continue the current home stand against fellow league powerhouse Karlskoga (15-6-0-0, 45 PTS) on Saturday.